Scholar Who Calls for Better Tests of Intelligence Wins Grawemeyer Award in Education

Keith E. Stanovich, a professor of human development and applied psychology at the University of Toronto, will receive the 2010 Grawemeyer Award in Education, the University of Louisville has announced.

Mr. Stanovich was honored for his 2009 book, What Intelligence Tests Miss: The Psychology of Rational Thought (Yale University Press). His research shows that many people who score highly on measures like the IQ test and the SAT still make poor life decisions. Such tests are incomplete measures of good thinking, he says, because they fail to take into account the rational skills needed to exercise good judgment in daily life.

Mr. Stanovich’s work “encourages us to rethink what intelligence means and come up with a better way to measure this important human trait,” said Bill Bush, an education professor at Louisville who directs the award.

The award is one of five Grawemeyer prizes that are presented each year in recognition of achievements in the arts, humanities, and social sciences. The awards were created in 1984 by H. Charles Grawemeyer, a University of Louisville alumnus, and are given by the Grawemeyer Foundation. Each prize carries a $200,000 cash award.

The recipients of the 2010 prizes in music composition, for ideas improving world order, and in psychology were announced earlier this week. More information about the awards and their recipients is available on the organization’s Web site. —Charles Huckabee